One Day at a Time
by favouritethingys
Summary: Aaron was waiting for his trial, the Kanes had left town, but Veronica couldn't rest yet, she had mysteries to solve and her complicated personal life that would not let her sleep at night, and she was still only in highschool... My take on what I would have rather happened in S2...
1. Her

It was three days until the beginning of the term and Veronica couldn't believe she was doing this, of all the crazy situations she had been in... OK, maybe this one wasn't the worst but it still ranked pretty high.

It all started with what she'd call «the day Don Lamb got to do his job» with the arrest of Aaron Echolls for the murder of Lily Kane and 3 attempted murders, and of Jake Kane for obstruction of justice.

But it was too much to hope that the night would end on a such good note, with her finally reunited with Logan after tending to his wounds and apologizing to him about her, yet again, lack of trust and his understanding ways, no, no, none of that, they were in Neptune after all, so that same night, Logan Echolls got arrested for murder as well.

"What murder ?" would you ask... See, a few hours before Aaron got arrested, Casidy Casablancas destroyed Logan's alibi, and Veronica had been the one who notified the local Sheriff of that, getting him arrested and leaking involuntary that information to Eli Navarro, ex-lover of Lily Kane and leader of the PCH. So, as Veronica almost got burned alive by Aaron Echolls, Logan, because of her, almost got beaten to death on Coronary beach by the PCHers,

Somehow, he survived, but woke up with the dead body of Felix Toombs by his side and no memory of what had happened.

Logan's pricey lawyer had came through for him, thank God, because of the circumstances, he had asked for a rapid judgment, Logan had been beaten pretty hard, his broken bones and bruises proof enough, his opponents had been numerous and all had a past of violent behavior, the few who had gone on stand got crushed by the attorney and without even getting Logan to testify, he demonstrated that no, there had been no witness to the actual stabbing, so Logan might still be innocent, but even if he did stab Felix, it would have been a case of self defense. Logan got out free, and people would think all was right in the world, but it was not.

When PCHers think you killed one of their own, they don't care about what a Judge has to say about it, so they harassed Logan, vandalism, threatening phone calls, all that escalated until one night, they shot at his car when he and Veronica were in it.

And that was when Logan decided to retaliate... For all the harassment he had been victim of, he had endured and not done a thing because he still felt guilty Felix died even though he wasn't sure he had been the one who stabbed the guy, but all gloves had been taken out after that night and despite Veronica's urgings he could no longer let it go, so he started by getting most of the PCHers relatives who worked in 09 households fired, and later after Dick got beaten by the gang, he and his friends set fire to the community pool.

And that was when Veronica couldn't bear it anymore, she had seen the escalation of the turf war between haves and havenots and she knew that violence was the only way Logan knew to defend himself, but she could not bear it anymore and asked him to stop, to calm the game down, to try to live in peace with the PCHers, that discussion went really well... OK not well at all, he denied he did anything, but really, he had been so obvious about the fire, she had seen Dick with a can full of fuel the same day asking Logan to come along..

But he still denied and then dragged out "how she could never put her trust in him", "how she accused him of all wrongdoings every single time" and the fight got louder and louder but he couldn't hear the message, couldn't see that it was killing her to see him in the path of self-destruction, she just couldn't bear it anymore and broke up with him.

The violence of his reaction to that scared her but it horrified him even more, seeing the bits of the broken lamp on the floor and the fear in Veronica's eyes finally got to him, he just whispered "oh my god" and left her apartment in a hurry as if he had seen a ghost. And that was the last time she had seen him... that was three weeks ago...

Where was she ? Oh yeah, she had gotten off track, somehow it always happened when she started thinking about Logan, so much issues, so many regrets... but no, her being here today wasn't because of Logan, no, the problem was her other ex, Duncan Kane, who had left town with his parents when Jake had been discharged with a slap on the wrist, had returned five weeks ago.

First, everything was hunky dory, she would only see him from time to time, at the beach while she walked Backup or at the Java hut when she had her shifts, Logan and him were still ignoring each other, but beside that, nothing noteworthy.

The problem started two weeks ago, when she had let it slip that Logan and her were over when Duncan asked about why he didn't see his ex-best friend for such a long time at the Cafe. She started seeing more of Duncan and didn't think anything of it, but, on her birthday, he left her a fortune cookie that said "_True love never ends_", his intention to woo her clear enough.

And **THAT** was the reason for her presence on this 09er porch tonight...


	2. Him

Thanks for the reviews, I also do love the rewrites, my favourites being th Truth series by Jenwin23. FF has a mighty lot of great fanfictions and especially for VM, I'm ashamed to say that I'm not much of a reviewer, I never quite know what to write in review as some are so much better than what I could ever write, so here I want to say thank you for all those stories I read and loved without ever saying so.

* * *

Logan was feeling more and more unconfortable, and he knew it wasn't because of the gorgeous leather sofa he was sitting on, no, Logan was having second thoughts, hell, he was having third or fourth thoughts about the plan. There he was, surrounded by the guys he spent most of his youth with, almost his best friends and he was doing his best not to bolt.

Logan refused the vodka on ice Casey was offering him and trying to tune Dick's voice out as he thought about the last two weeks.

After his break-up with Veronica, he had tried to drink as much as possible to forget, forget her, forget what almost happened, what he did, but after mere three days, Logan had woken up with the biggest hungover of all time and when he had looked into the mirror, it had been his mother's eyes he saw.

As much as he loved her, that was not who he wanted to be.

Logan decided then and there to pull himself together and do something about it, he stopped drinking.

Well almost, it had been ten days he hadn't had more to drink than a couple of beers and only because he was at a party Dick had dragged him to "To stop him from moping around like a schoolgirl".

And now it was time to fix the part of his life that he could, to get back the friend he had missed so much. It was time to face the music, Logan thought as he waited for everyone to arrive, he knew it would be hard but he couldn't not do it.

Logan had a plan, not a very elaborated one but still, he had a plan, it had started when, one month ago, Casey contacted him to invite him for a boys only poker night with only his closest friends before going to Uni, Logan had said yes, he even told Casey Duncan was back in town, he knew that Duncan wouldn't be able to refuse, the golden boy had no reason to and never was be able to say no.

Everyone was now waiting for Duncan to arrive in front of the giant screen, John was laughing his ass off and Dick was bitching to Luke about how Logan had refused to go to Tijuana with Cassidy and him just for a lousy party with no boobs and almost nothing to drink, Casey was looking uneasy, avoiding eye contact with Logan, _THAT was suspicious_, he heard Veronica's voice...

He had to stop that, Logan shook his head, everything was fine and dandy, hey, Casey was answering the door (he had his personnel have their day off ), Duncan was going to come in and they would all hang out like old times, play poker and he would be able to have a few minutes alone with his ex-best friend to start to mend their relationship.

As he was saying to himself that everything was going to be fine, he heard a voice that he instantly recognised.

In a daze, he heard Dick's voice far away, melting with the television, he saw Luke trying to cover Dick's mouth for some reason, and John was there beside him, trying to get his attention, saying something to him, casting angry glares at Casey...who was standing awkwardly beside a petite girl who was doing her best to look self assured while she avoided his eyes.


End file.
